The companies announced on October 1 that they had agreed to an eight-day extension to their old carriage agreement, ensuring the satcaster would continue airing the broadcaster’s 47 local stations until last night Dish said last night it asked Tegna for another extension, but the broadcaster refused.
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Dish, based in Englewood, Colorado, had said it offered a short-term contract extension to Tegna while negotiations continued, but that Tegna instead chose to “use innocent consumers as bargaining chips”.
Dish, which has a legacy of playing hardball in negotiations, has been more willing than its pay-television peers to let TV channels go dark on its service when talks hit an impasse.
“Tegna has worked hard over the course of months to reach a deal with Dish”. Our position has been simple: the same fundamental terms that allowed us to reach deals with distributors nationwide should serve as the basis for our deal with Dish, Tegna said in a statement.
R. Stanton Dodge, Dish’s executive vice president and general counsel, said that Tegna’s decision to cut off access to subscribers is a “prime example of why Washington needs to stand up for consumers and end local channel blackouts”. “Tegna doesn’t have anything to lose & consumers have everything to gain from this since the channels are left up according to Warren Schlichting, the senior VP of programming at Dish”.
However, Tegna called Dish “a serial dropper”, a reference to the satcaster’s frequent disputes with programmers over the years.
On its website, Channel 2 posted a notice to Dish subscribers.
“KSDK is now not available on Dish….”
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TEGNA Inc. (NYSE: TGNA), formerly Gannett Co., Inc., is comprised of a dynamic portfolio of media and digital businesses that provide content that matters and brands that deliver. In fact, we have never had a service disruption with a major distributor before. “Make your voice heard”.
